My first 'no electrical assist and near miss' adventure
Greetings all.
Yesterday, I e-mailed the following to my dealer (not selling dealer, but one who did me right regarding rear wheel geometry fix a few years ago): (blank) I thought I should send you an note and go on the record after having a scare on the road today. With five bars showing on the state of charge (SOC) meter (the SOC meter seems to sit at this point most of the time since the software update), I made a right turn (from a stop) into the flow of traffic on a main arterial road and 'floored it'. The was NO electrical assist at all. The car felt like an extra 1000 kg had been added to it. The guy behind me had to brake and he laid on the horn. This is the first time this anomaly has happened to me, however I find that I am mirroring this and other symptoms like those found at this site: https://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/f51/ .....such as:
It is my understanding that when it comes to questionable battery packs, the above web site seems to indicate that Honda will only entertain a new battery pack if the IMA warning lamp comes on. My IMA warning lamp has never come on. Colloquially, it has been said that the new software update does its best to hide a failing battery pack and prevent the IMA warning lamp from glowing. My own driving experience seems to support the hypothesis that my battery pack is showing signs of failure and the software is masking it. I have 110,000 kms on the car which means (even with the Honda Plus extended warranty) I have 20,000 kms of warranty left on the battery pack. I would like to hear your opinion on all this and also have you formally record with Team Honda that I have had my first "no electrical assist and near miss" incident as of this date. I shall e-mail you back on this subject only if the IMA lamp glows and/or I have another "no electrical assist and near miss" incident in the future. Thank you for your professional understanding in this matter. I'll let you know if/when I hear back from this chap. Cheers Mike |
Re: My first 'no electrical assist and near miss' adventure
Originally Posted by navguy12
(Post 239555)
It is my understanding that when it comes to questionable battery packs, the above web site seems to indicate that Honda will only entertain a new battery pack if the IMA warning lamp comes on.
Here's some encouraging news for you: My IMA pack was replaced by Honda without the IMA warning lamp having ever come on. Per Honda, as long as your need can be demonstrated, i.e., replicated or documented, you should get warranty support. For evidentiary reasons, I recorded videos of such occurrences, although I never needed to use them as evidence since the Honda rep was able to observe the faulty behavior by himself. You may want to do the same. I would not assume that your battery issue is because of the software. It's more probable that the pack would have failed anyway. Good luck. |
Re: My first 'no electrical assist and near miss' adventure
Steve, thanks for the input.
Here's some encouraging news for you: My IMA pack was replaced by Honda without the IMA warning lamp having ever come on. Per Honda, as long as your need can be demonstrated, i.e., replicated or documented, you should get warranty support. He also said to call Honda customer relations simply to log the complaint into their system although they will also say that the dealer has to be able to duplicate the phenomena. So now to see if/when/how to duplicate this such that it can be duplicated repeatedly...... I would not assume that your battery issue is because of the software. It's more probable that the pack would have failed anyway. Thanks Cheers Mike |
Re: My first 'no electrical assist and near miss' adventure
Here's Honda Canada's (Jean, ext 6842) first take:
Dealer has to record phenomena (100% agree). (Based on data-base info): He then asked about the condition of the car and routine maintenance. I replied I have done all my routine maintenance as per the maintenance minder and I have receipts for the products used. Jean stated "that if this went to court, you wouldn't be looked on favorably because of the self maintenance." Jean's condescending attitude devolved the discussion to the point where I had to remind him that it is against federal law to 'deny warranty work' because of self maintenance. I can see that Honda Canada will, when the time comes after I have demonstrated this issue to the dealer, need some coaxing to say the least..... |
Re: My first 'no electrical assist and near miss' adventure
Originally Posted by navguy12
(Post 239561)
Here's Honda Canada's (Jean, ext 6842) first take:
... I replied I have done all my routine maintenance as per the maintenance minder and I have receipts for the products used. Jean stated "that if this went to court, you wouldn't be looked on favorably because of the self maintenance." Jean's condescending attitude devolved the discussion to the point where I had to remind him that it is against federal law to 'deny warranty work' because of self maintenance. I got the same reaction to my own maintenance work as well as my figuring out about TSBs and such via the Internet. "Do you just sit and look for problems in your car on the Internet?" ... No, but I do wish the **** a**holes who service the car would let me know so I don't have to learn of safety problems or the like via the Internet. PS: The local dealer's service person who was the "Hybrid expert" did not even know about auto-stop/assist/regen/etc. When they messed up a re-learning process a couple of years ago, the car behaved like a normal civic, and the person drove the car, and exclaimed: "The car drives beautifully!". Yeah. |
Re: My first 'no electrical assist and near miss' adventure
btownmadness, thanks.
Can relate. I got the same reaction to my own maintenance work as well as my figuring out about TSBs and such via the Internet. After my call, I e-mailed my dealer. Here is an excerpt: Any further attempt at meaningful communication with Honda Canada was impossible. After I called your office to let you know how the call went, I re-read the following: Page 183 of 2007 Civic Hybrid Owner’s Manual “However, service at a dealership is not mandatory to keep your warranties in effect. Maintenance may be done by any qualified service facility or person who is skilled in this type of automotive service. Make sure to have the service facility of person reset the display as previously described. Keep all receipts as proof of completion, and have the person who does the work fill out the maintenance record.” Page 18 of 2007 Honda Care 2007 Warranty & Maintenance Guide, Plus Dealer Listing “No warranty shall cover: 1. Any repairs required as a result of a lack of required maintenance” If I have to ultimately defend my choice of maintenance regimen for IMA warranty work, I would be interested to have Honda Canada indicate, with no IMA and/or MAL lamp glowing, any maintenance item found on page 185 of the "2007 Civic Hybrid Owner's Manual" that encompasses the IMA battery or electrical portion of the IMA primary drive system. Good morning (blank), Friday night (02 Dec 2011 at about 7:10 pm EST) while merging onto the 401 and 'burying' the gas peddle, there was no electrical assist. Prior to booking an appointment with you, I request that you clarify the following with the Honda tech team so as not to waste your valuable time (and to demonstrate an unambiguous 'test failure'): Assumptions:
With the preceding four assumptions, is there any 'intended design' or expected (from a Honda engineering perspective) reason to have the IMA electrical assist completely restricted (i.e. absolutely no white assist bars showing)? If the answer to the above question is "no", I can easily repeat this scenario with you in the car and wish to book an appointment with you such that I can demonstrate this to you. If the answer to the above question is "yes", I request the Honda tech people explain their answer in writing, and in such a fashion so as to allow my wife to understand the designed limits of the operating envelope for IMA electrical assist under the aforementioned 'brisk' acceleration circumstances. As an aside, prior to this past Thursday, this phenomena has never occurred in the 4 years and 8 months of ownership of this vehicle. To the audience reading this rant: with my 4 listed assumptions, IS there a legitimate reason (other than failing battery) for no assist with heavy acceleration? Thanks Cheers Mike |
Re: My first 'no electrical assist and near miss' adventure
Originally Posted by navguy12
(Post 239579)
To the audience reading this rant: with my 4 listed assumptions, IS there a legitimate reason (other than failing battery) for no assist with heavy acceleration? Thanks Cheers Mike I had this issue with my HCHII -until- I changed the battery myself. Now I have plenty of assist whenever I need it. No loss of power anymore. Before I changed the battery, the re-cals would specifically happen WHEN I HIT THE GAS HARD to enter the freeway. I never had an IMA light, just lots of re-cals and poor acceleration when needed. |
Re: My first 'no electrical assist and near miss' adventure
Hunter, thanks.
I had this issue with my HCHII -until- I changed the battery myself. Now I have plenty of assist whenever I need it. No loss of power anymore. Before I changed the battery, the re-cals would specifically happen WHEN I HIT THE GAS HARD to enter the freeway. I never had an IMA light, just lots of re-cals and poor acceleration when needed. But with 20,000 km of warranty left on the battery, I'll try that route first. Today, I had IMA acceleration when required. So I can see that this is going to become an exercise in how I can determine when I will not get the IMA kick, prior to the event. I won't go to the dealer until I know I can prompt a no IMA assist event 'on spec'. Thanks Mike |
Re: My first 'no electrical assist and near miss' adventure
I hope I don't sound out of line with my following comment. It's meant to be helpful, but please disregard if it doesn't seem to apply.
This is a suggestive word of caution. Be very clear about what you want and expect, but try to befriend and 'enroll' Honda personnel in helping to (re)solve your problem, rather than to cause an adversarial (polar) reaction inadvertently. My suggestion is general, not based on the OP or anyone, specifically. But many times I see customers "come out swinging" which can provoke strongly-held positions and slam doors that are hard to reopen later. To be clear, I am not advocating being meek. I simply think it's not pragmatic to box anyone at your dealership into a corner. In negotiations, you always need to give the other person a way to change positions gracefully. Turn your adversaries into your friends. You won't get less, and you might get more. Don't let emotion dominate the dialogue. |
Re: My first 'no electrical assist and near miss' adventure
"Don't let emotion dominate the dialogue."
Those are wise words; I'll have to remember that when I'm at work and having a hard time. I was wondering, with the problem of no assist during acceleration, in those situations would it help if the transmission was placed in "S" mode until the car gets up to speed? |
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